By BadgerGater
Category: Missing scene, Secrets
Season: Second
Spoilers: Secrets
Rating: G
Warnings: None, really, couple of adult words
Disclaimer: Don’t own ‘em. Would if I could. But I can’t, so I’m just borrowing them
Summary: Gen. Jacob Carter meets Col. Jack O’Neill, and doesn’t like what he sees
--- --- ---
Deep space radar telemetry, my left foot, Gen. Jacob Carter thought unhappily. Meeting his daughter’s commanding officer had just scared him half to death. What was really going on?
Sam, Captain Samantha Carter, had just turned down his offer of help to get her into the premier program in the United States Air Force, or any other branch of any nation’s military: NASA, the astronaut corps, space, her lifelong dream. And the good general would bet his stars it had something to do with Col. Jack O’Neill, his daughter’s immediate superior.
Jacob’s old friend General George Hammond was the commanding officer of the Cheyenne Mountain based top-secret project Sam, astrophysicist and captain, was a part of. He had always trusted George, had pushed back his worries about his daughter’s mysterious assignment because George was involved. Maybe it was time he took a look at what was really going on.
This whole medal ceremony thing had set off alarm bells in his head the moment he’d heard about it. No one handed out the Air Medal, even in this peacetime, post-Cold War day and age, for routine technical stuff, even above and beyond the ordinary top-secret technical stuff. Especially in a ceremony with the president.
Col. Jack O’Neill. There was something vaguely familiar about the name. But boy, all it had taken was one look and Jacob knew this guy had nothing to do with radar or satellites, was no sit behind a desk administrative type, no scientist either. Warrior was written all over him, in his carriage; his self-assurance; his wary, watchful eyes that never quit taking in the room; the callused hands and battered fingers; the chest full of medals that, if one looked closely, weren’t administrative or peacetime service honors; a tightly wound, aggressive, type A personality if he’d ever seen one, and he’d seen plenty.
If O’Neill wasn’t Special Forces, Jacob would eat his hat.
So what was his daughter involved in? He shivered.
Jacob had cancer, the prognosis wasn’t good, and he had to make sure his daughter was taken care of. It was one last gift he had wanted to give her, to make up for all the hard times his military career had caused her-the constant moving, the disruption in their lives, his long absences from home. Getting her into NASA, her dream job, to a secure and relatively safe assignment was meant to be his last gift. And she had turned him down.
Oh, he knew that colonel had something to do with it. Sure, Sam had nothing but good to say of the man.
Said he was the best commanding officer she’d ever worked with-tough, determined, demanding but fair. Yes, she’d had to fight to gain his acceptance and respect, but now he appreciated her abilities. And it was obvious he had her trust and respect.
He’d seen something else in her eyes then, and the thought crossed his mind to wonder if there was something * else * going on between his daughter and that colonel (oh, O’Neill was good looking all right, every woman in the room had taken note when he walked in), that there might be some career-threatening romantic thing going on. But Sam’s totally appalled look when he’d brought up the implication had told him there was nothing happening in that regard. Thank God. The Jonas Hansen thing had taught her something.
__________
Once back to his office, Carter turned to looking up O’Neill’s file, his personnel records. He got a nasty jolt when he discovered whole chunks of the colonel’s records were tabbed so top secret even he, a general with a high level clearance, couldn’t get in to most of it. Holy Hannah.
He was more frightened than ever.
Turning to what he could access, Carter began to browse, reading as much between the lines as he could from what was actually recorded there.
Jonathan O’Neill. Born in Chicago. Enlisted upon graduation from high school. Whoa, he’d started as an enlisted man? Volunteered for airborne, anxious to be jumping out of perfectly good airplanes. Adrenaline junky, Jacob thought. Tough, hardworking, athletically talented, he immediately impressed his superiors. Seemed to have a little trouble with authority at times, apparently a bit of a smart mouth, but moved up rapidly as an NCO, serving with air-rescue. Commendations for initiative and determination in a hair-raising rescue of a downed airman, at risk of his own life; another for saving the life of a wounded buddy injured in a bad chute drop, refusing to leave the man behind, carrying him out to rescue.
Sent to OCS, where the comments were again stellar: a natural born leader, tough, determined, good strategist, smart, innovative, demanding of himself and others. Mention again of the smart mouth.
The file included a picture of the new Lt. O’Neill, looking so much younger than the man he had met just the other day. Just as cocky. Just as determined. Very sure of himself. So like and yet unlike the man he had just met. O’Neill was tempered now, the look in his eyes different, judging, assessing, world-weary, eyes that had seen too much. Ah, life in the military will do that to even the best of us, Carter sighed.
The file recorded O’Neill’s service all over the globe, every trouble spot on the planet-Grenada, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Somalia, Bosnia, Iran, Iraq, South America, Germany before the iron curtain came down. How many more places that couldn’t be mentioned, Jacob wondered?
A one line note, O’Neill’s assignment to Air Force intelligence. That’s where the odd gaps began appearing in his record: unexplained promotions, honors and medals awarded for vaguely worded actions.
Oh my lord, Carter thought, black ops.
Sam, Sam, what are you involved in?
Hmm, this was strange. O’Neill was definitely a career man, but here, at barely 40, he’d retired. It got even stranger. Just over a year later, he’d been suddenly recalled, at a time when senior officers were in excess and no one was getting recalled that Jacob had heard of. Assigned to Cheyenne Mountain and the command of Gen. George Hammond. Deep Space Radar Telemetry Project. Top Secret.
This file turned up more questions than it answered.
Medical records were spotty, too. But Jacob knew how to interpret those terse phrases and blank spots. Page after page of blanked out medical files and long recuperation periods, one in the mid-80s, another in the early 90s at the time of the Gulf War, a last one just over a year ago, at the same time Sam had turned up at his door on an unexpectedly long leave, looking tired, pale and sore, her face cut and bruised.
Not much in O’Neill’s personal file, he had been married, wife named Sara, a young son who died…. Oh my God. Carter remembered now, remembered the stories about a boy, a colonel’s son who had shot himself with his father’s handgun. Jacob checked the dates-that accounted for the sudden, too-young retirement. So what had brought him back, the same fascinating assignment that kept Sam from leaping at a chance at NASA? Deep Space Radar Telemetry? Yeah, right.
What was really going on inside that damn mountain?
He was afraid he would never know.
___ ___ ____
